S.Y. Agnon is the 1968 Nobel Literature laureate. Despite his constant denial, Agnon used psychoanalytical material as an integral part of his stories. In order to better understand the process, the lecture will compare the three versions of a story he wrote, “Agunot”. By focusing on Agnon’s editorial efforts from one version to another, the lecture will highlight the evolution of his characters and his modifications to the structure of the dreams in the story. It will show how, by removing some of the narrative, Agnon created a “non-dit” (unspoken) that conveys the eloquence of the unconscious.

Brigitte Caland has a PhD from the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), Paris, and teaches Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic in the Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages at AUB. Her work focuses on applying Freudian psychoanalytical material to literature.

Free and open to the public!

Sponsored by Art History, Jewish Studies, the Leslie Center for the Humanities, Middle Eastern Studies, and the Associate Dean for International Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies

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